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Click to see a gallery of photos from Jerry Lee Lewis' performance in Nashville on April 17, 2011 (this image: Shelley Mays/The Tennessean).

Record Store Day at Third Man Records was supposed to culminate with a big outdoor throwdown from rock icon Jerry Lee Lewis -- unfortunately, blustery weather put a pause on those plans; fortunately, Lewis and his all-star band got a beautiful, performance-friendly Sunday afternoon.

Mayor Karl Dean presented White with the first annual Music City Ambassador Award Saturday morning at White’s Third Man Records building in downtown Nashville. The award, voted on by the Nashville Music Council, honors the Nashville resident who has brought the most international attention to the Nashville music industry over the past year.

White was a man of few words during the ceremony, but thanked the city and the mayor, calling the award “an incredible honor.”

Mayor Dean told The Tennessean that among the candidates for the inaugural award, White was the “overwhelming choice.”

“I think he’s special for a variety of reasons," Dean said. "His music spans over several different genres. He made a decision to come to Nashville after he achieved a great deal of success. He came here with all of his creative energy, plus this entrepreneurial spirit, and he is invested in the community.”

The ceremony, held on Third Man's front loading dock, had a large public audience, as hundreds of fans were lined up outside to purchase the label’s special releases in celebration of Record Store Day. The event was billed as a block party, with local food vendors and vinyl records blasting from the speakers of the Third Man “Rolling Record Store” truck.

The day’s festivities were to be capped off with an outdoor concert from rock ’n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. Weather conditions, however, forced the concert to be postponed until 1 p.m. Sunday.

Lewis still performed Saturday afternoon at a private gathering for friends and family inside the Third Man building.

The 75-year-old whipped through a lively set of his classics and R&B standards, including “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee,” “Georgia On My Mind” and “Sweet Little 16.” His ace four-piece band featured longtime bandleader Ken Lovelace, famed soul guitarist Steve Cropper, session drumming great Jim Keltner and Dead Weather/Greenhornes bassist Jack Lawrence.

Lewis closed his speedy set with a pair of signature tunes -- “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” -- before bidding farewell to a very enthusiastic audience.

“What we’re doing here is all new to me,” he said with a smile. “I just started in the business.”

Two out of three members of the Cincinnati-bred band now live in Nashville: Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, who’ve served as rhythm section for the Raconteurs and Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose. Music City fans have been particularly fortunate, as Nashville has hosted a number of performances from the group since they reformed and released November 2010's ★ ★ ★ ★, their first album in eight years.

The band plays the Mercy Lounge (1 Cannery Row, 251-3020) on Saturday, April 16. The show starts at 9 p.m., and tickets are $12 in advance, $14 day of show.

For those of us who didn't make it to Austin this year for South By Southwest: Waterloo Records posted some video footage from partially Nashville-based garage-rock crew the Greenhornes' performance there in March.

Catch "Better Off Without It" and "Underestimator" above. (Those two tunes come from the band's ★ ★ ★ ★ album, issued last October by Third Man Records.)

Garage-rock stalwarts the Greenhornes have added a string of dates to their spring tour to coincide with another new release, which will follow their ★ ★ ★ ★ LP, issued in November.

The band shares the new dates and new release with local rock two-piece JEFF the Brotherhood: They'll issue new tunes together on a split 7-inch vinyl release via JEFF members Jake and Jamin Orrall's label, Infinity Cat. The split will be limited to 666 hand-numbered copies, and fans can only snag them at shows.

The bands' co-jaunt kicks off in Houston on May 5, wrapping in Oxford, Miss. on May 26. The Greenhornes tour will bring bassist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler home to Nashville, but Hacienda and local punk act PUJOL will open that show, set for April 16 at the Mercy Lounge. (Tickets for the 18-and-up Mercy Lounge show run $12 in advance and $14 on the day of show, and are on sale via Ticketweb.com.)

Get a live Greenhornes taste above, from a performance on FUEL TV's The Daily Habit. (On keys there is another Nashvillian: Mark Watrous, who's also played with Keeler and Lawrence's band the Raconteurs and Raconteurs singer/guitarist Brendan Benson, among others.)

Any gear nerd worth their salt knows about the NAMM show -- an annual confab for folks who make sell, supply and/or endorse musical instruments, during which the latest and greatest innovations are unveiled.

Along with his Greenhornes work, Nashville drummer Keeler is known for playing with The Raconteurs and on Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose album, among many other projects.

Keeler helped design the green acrylic kit (photo above), according to a rep for the Greenhornes. Keeler's certainly not in poor company in having his kit be part of Ludwig's acrylic Vistalite series: Ludwig's Amber Vistalite Zep Set pays tribute to perhaps the most famous Vistalite fan and user, drumming hero John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

Keeler will be out on the road with the Greenhornes through the spring, wandering through Australia, Canada and the U.S. They head back to Music City on April 16 for a show at the Mercy Lounge. Tickets for that 18-and-up show run $12 in advance and $14 day of.

The members of garage-rock outfit the Greenhornes -- Nashvillians and Raconteurs Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler and frontman/Cincinnati dweller Craig Fox -- continue to tour behind ★ ★ ★ ★, their first new album in eight years.

That running around will bring them back to Music City on April 16, for a show at the Mercy Lounge.

Tickets for the 18-and-up show run $12 in advance and $14 on the day of show, and will go on sale via Ticketweb.com on Friday, Jan. 7 at 10 a.m. Central.

The band released the new set on November 9 via Third Man Records, the label launched by Lawrence and Keeler's Raconteurs bandmate Jack White. We spoke with the three Greenhornes about ★ ★ ★ ★ around its release -- read our Greenhornes interview.

Well-loved Web destination Daytrotter.com came out to Nashville earlier this year to record a session with Music City rock talent Brendan Benson at his home.

Benson -- who's out now on a co-headlining tour with The Posies -- recorded a trio of songs from his 2009 release My Old, Familiar Friend ("Garbage Day," "Gonowhere" and "You Make a Fool Out of Me") and "Jet Lag" from 2002's Lapalco. He's joined on the Daytrotter session by fellow Nashvillian Andrew Higley, who also performs live with Ben Folds and The Greenhornes, among others.

Sometime in 2005, after releasing a string of albums and an EP on a near-annual basis, the men of Cincinnati garage-rock group The Greenhornes hit a wall.

“We wanted to take a second for a break,” says drummer Patrick Keeler, “and it just ended up being a lot longer than we thought.”

The break has finally ended with Four Stars (stylized as ★ ★ ★ ★), the band’s first new album in eight years.

In that time, Keeler and bassist Jack Lawrence moved to Nashville, where they’ve enjoyed success with many of Jack White’s musical projects, including Loretta Lynn’s Grammy-winning album Van Lear Rose, and as members of The Raconteurs. Lawrence also is in The Dead Weather with White, who plays a role in Four Stars’ release — it’s being issued on White’s Nashville-based label, Third Man Records.

The band recorded the album in Nashville and Cincinnati, where frontman Craig Fox still lives.

“It was nice to be in a familiar place in the studio and to be back in the band that we all started over a decade ago,” Keeler says, chuckling in disbelief. But during the band’s lengthy downtime, their status as under-sung garage greats endured.

“People asked about The Greenhornes all the time,” Fox says. “Every time I’d go to another city, somebody would ask me about it.”Continue reading →